Worming with Fry in tank

[Lajos_Detari]

Can I ask why you should wait until they're a month old? Only because I wormed a load when there were newborns in there too, since fry between 1-2 months old were dying off before I was able to determine that it was worms, and with the way livebearers are, I didn't think there would be a gap coming up where there wouldn't be any young fry either. The adults who were struggling wouldn't have lasted another month without treatment I don't think. They didn't seem to suffer any ill effects from the worming.

It seems to me that Flubendazole might be more gentle than other medications.(just my opinion)
It's very useful for treatment of fry.
Nevertheless, in some cases you may have to reduce the dosage.

 

[Lajos_Detari]

The fry will almost certainly be fine! I wormed mine when some fry were only two days old. They're still doing well and growing The fry are at much greater risk from the worms than the medication, in my experience. So I wouldn't mess around with half dosing.

A lot of meds aren't safe for shrimp or inverts, since a lot of the meds are meant to kill parasites and so also have an affect on inverts and snails because of their physiology, but that doesn't mean it's higher risk for the fry.

I did find the eSHa meds to be shrimp safe enough, and they certainly didn't kill off my pest snails either.

Have you ever used Flubendazole with shrimps in the tank?
I wonder whether Flubendazole is safe for shrimps.

 

[AilyNC]

It should be fine to use Flubendazole with heat at 30degC.
Make sure you have much aeration as the oxygen level will be lower at 30C plus the medication.

Some Discus keepers used very high heat (up to 31C or higher) to kill the worms instead of Flubendazole.
But it's better not to use this method as some fish may not be able to take this high temperature.

From my experience, Flubendazole is effective to kill internal worms though it may take slightly longer for some cases.

How long did you treat the ich?
Usually after all the white spots are gone, you still need to treat for about 7-10 days to kill the remaining eggs.

Also, monitor the effectiveness with heat treatment.
There are some strains of ich that may be resistant to heat.

I had temp up for about 20 days the last time. The first one had power cut mess with it. I'll go to 30 again and just keep closer eye so that I do 10 days of no spots.

For the worming I've been using 1000 mg/100ml flubendazole NT Labs Anti-Fluke & Wormer. The fry are all ok after a full week since first dose. Gave 2nd dose today. Will do water change & filter clean tomorrow. Then I can raise the temp during water Change & start my 3rd time's a charm ICH heat treatment.

 

[Colin_T]

Great thanks. It's white stringy poop that's improving with treatment. I see the ICH is back (after two attempts of 2 week high temps, one interupted by power cut). @Colin_T is it ok to raise temp to 30 degrees while also treating worms? Wondering if higher temp plus medication might be a conflict. I've just given second work dose & seen the ICH is back

Lajos pretty much covered it.

Yes, it's fine to use dewormer and high temperatures but the warmer water and medication holds less oxygen so make sure you have lots of surface turbulence.

Deworming medications normally get used once a week for 3-4 weeks. The medication normally takes effect and kills the worms within a few hours of being added to the tank. If you do a 80-90% water change and complete gravel clean 24 hours after treatment, the remaining medication will have minimal impact on the oxygen levels. then re-treat the tank a week later.

 

[AilyNC]

It's so annoying because I wanted to take cuttings from my plant and put in my new tank starting a cycle. But like they'll probably be riddled with worms & ICH

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Normally you try not to use chemicals on baby animals, birds or fish because they haven't developed yet and are more sensitive to chemicals. However, if the weren't affected by a full dose, then that should be fine.

If fish have intestinal worms, then feeding them more often will provide them with more nutrition so they can produce more blood and survive longer whilst infected.

That makes sense, thank you.

Before I realised that the fish had worms, I was losing the odd fry, but always around the same ages, between 1-2 months old, and I was confused. They were also leaner than healthy guppy fry usually look. Really young ones looked okay, adults looked okay, but they'd hit that 1-2 months range, get lean looking (but not the usual skinny plus lethargic look I associate with wormy adults), just... shaped wrong, lean all over.

I have source amnesia over this theory, don't know whether I read it somewhere, or I came up with it and have convinced myself that I read it somewhere, or I'm conflating info around dogs with worms or something. But my working theory is that newborn fry were okay because they hadn't yet ingested worms, or if they had, the worms hadn't grown much yet, while the older fry had ingested worms and the worms had grown enough to drain too many nutrients from the young fish, but the fish wasn't large and well developed enough to handle a worm burden for months the way adults can, you know? So it seemed to hit that age range the hardest.

I also know how important it is to worm puppies and kittens when they're still really small, because the worms are much more likely to be fatal to a puppy or kitten than the adult, and can affect their development. But I also realise that comparing mammal biology to fish doesn't always translate.

I really didn't have much choice though since guppies were dying, and either the guppies in my tanks or the platies and mollies in the 57 gallon are always dropping new batches of fry, so there are always some newborns around, and I decided I had to risk it. The deaths did stop after treatment, adults recovered, and the lean looking fry stopping happening too. So on balance, I think it was worth the risk.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Have you ever used Flubendazole with shrimps in the tank?
I wonder whether Flubendazole is safe for shrimps.

I haven't I'm afraid, so I don't know whether it's shrimp safe. The meds I used have Praziquantel and the other levamisole as the active ingredients, and the shrimp (and pest snails) survived those treatments.

 

[Essjay]

Have you ever used Flubendazole with shrimps in the tank?
I wonder whether Flubendazole is safe for shrimps.

NT Labs Ant-Fluke and Wormer contains flubendazole, and the info on NT Labs website states

Warning: This product will kill snails, shrimps and other invertebrates.